Kevin Bresnahan

I think the DCC gold CD of VH1 sounds great. If you choose to believe him, Hoffman supposedly found some old master that had never been used for the DCC LP & CD and I think it shows. BTW - this one picture seems to have everyone worried. I don't know, to me, he just looks a little pudgy. I think many of us are going to end up looking a little like this.

Bull Moose has those too but in the same slots, they have unauthorized versions of many sessions. For instance, they have the recent BN 80th anniversary edition LP of Herbie Hancock's "Takin' Off" for $23.97. It's cut from the master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio and cut at Pallas in Germany. It sounds pretty good too. Standing just behind it in the 'H' section is another copy of Herbie Hancock's "Takin' Off" LP with the original cover art from the Wax Love label for $19.97. Hey it's $4 cheaper. Get that one, right? Wax Love did not get a license from Universal so you have no idea what source is used but what the heck, it saves you $4, so that's all that matters. As I said, in the not too distant past, these records were much harder to find. You almost always had to go mail order because most reputable dealers wouldn't even carry these things. No so today.

I was in Portsmouth NH yesterday and stopped into the Bull Moose Music store there. I was pretty disappointed by what I saw. The new vinyl section was filled with legit-looking bootlegs, either European gray goods or outright boots of unlicensed live recordings. The CD section was only a little better. It wasn't that long ago that they never would have had these in their store. I guess when it's all you can stock, you stock it?

I ordered a signed copy. I already have a signed copy of "Presenting Michael Weiss" or I would've chosen that option.

See if this comes up as stealing bandwidth.

I picked up a bag of Jelly Belly Candy Corn the other day. Made in the good ol' USA. Tasted mighty fine.

I usually shut off motion effects because they make live football games nauseating. The motion blur when anyone runs down the field just looks wrong. Not live at all. However, having said that, I do know what Jim is talking about with some older shot-to-video stuff looking better with digital processing. I wonder if it's actually edge enhancement that Jim is seeing rather than motion-smoothing though.

Noisy records almost always sound better after a wet clean. I always felt that no matter how much you vacuum or dry it, there's still some fluid in the grooves because if you let it dry over many hours, it'll be noisy again. As I said, I heard muted high frequencies when I used to wet wipe my records. I didn't hear it as much when I went dry. FWIW, I think the Ortofon 2M Black's nude Shibata stylus, seems to playback most records much quieter than any other stylus I've owned in the past. I think it might go down into the grooves better and somehow avoids shallower scratches. I've played back some ugly-looking records with great success avoiding visible scratches.

I used to wet wipe all my records before playing them but I find that I like the sound better when I just dry wipe it with my old trusty Discwasher. If there are any stuck on chunks, I find my finger works fine (sacrilege!!). BTW - don't buy the new Discwasher. It's basically covered in cheap fuzzy corduroy, nothing like what was used in the past.

Such a bummer. He was a great contributor here. RIP Uli. He was only 70. Too young in this day & age.

I was told it was the 1989 LP pressing: https://www.discogs.com/Hank-Mobley-No-Room-For-Squares/release/3822832

If you are talking about the German ZYX CDs from the late 90's, they were almost universally panned for their poor sound. The only CD versions of "Smokin'" I could find were one on Roulette, which also wasn't known for issuing the best-sounding CDs and a recent Italian release, which I've never heard.

I found this on a sale page many years ago and grabbed it. A very nice trio date.

That was a killer band! I remember going to one of their gigs not knowing that Wyands was on piano and being amazed at his playing. He was the one you found yourself watching more than any of the others.

Several Jazz artists and publications are reporting that pianist Richard Wyands passed away last Wednesday (9/25). https://www.weldonfh.com/book-of-memories/3977118/Wyands-Richard/obituary.php

Nothing yet but in searching around Facebook, I got even more bad news from Mike LeDonne's FB feed: Mike LeDonne 18 hrs · Something very bad is happening in the universe right now because some of our greatest artists/people are dropping like flies! Just this morning I found out that Larry Willis and Richard Wyands have both passed away. These were old and dear friends of mine that were also my heroes. I'm still reeling from losing Harold Mabern and now this. I really have no words to express how I feel except to say that this is a very sad time. Losing these 3 masters so close together is very weird and feels very heavy.

Many are reporting on Facebook that pianist Larry Willis died this morning at the age of 76.

A stopwatch would seem to be a necessary item when recording during the LP era. It's not like they had digital timers on the tape machines.

"Best of? Ha!! One hit and they still put out a Best Of CD.

I had an E-mail dialog with him many years ago. In his written word, he was extremely nice and seemed to remember a lot of stuff from back in the day. I wish i saved those E-mails as I don't even remember all the stuff we talked about. I did mention Chris Albertson to him once and he didn't say anything bad about him so on his side at least, there didn't seem to be any rancor.

Chris utilized a stopwatch at a session that had no involvement with Bob Weinstock. Does that mean that Chris had no ears to recognize a good or bad take? It's never good to generalize. Look, we all know Chris hated Keepnews but whatever happened, it was personal between the two of them. At the same time, I've read of plenty of musicians who liked working with Keepnews. Jimmy Heath comes to mind. Both of them are now gone so there's no reason to continue this feud in their stead.

I believe the stopwatch was actually held by Chris Albertson, as was necessary in those days to make sure that your takes didn't go beyond what would fit onto an LP side. BTW, in Chris's own words, he continued to use a stopwatch for his own productions, so the use of the stopwatch itself was an accepted practice. Somehow it has come to be applied to Orrin Keepnews as some sort of negative thing he did. For instance, from Chris's old "Stomp Off" blog: "The exception was a flamenco session Bob (Weinstock of Prestige Records) asked me to do on a few hours notice—to this day, it is my only non-jazz/blues effort. It featured a Spanish Flamenco group, Los Morenos, that seemed to have come out of nowhere on a two-way ticket. I don’t know how good or authentic this group was, but its five members arrived at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio on time, complete with a roll-out dance floor and a routine as tight as any I had seen. They whipped out their castanets, stomped and attitudinized with an impressive flair for the dramatic while I practiced a lesson taken from Orrin’s a&r manual: worked the stopwatch. Unless it was a glaring goof, how would I know when to call for another take? Sound of Flamenco, should you ever come across it, is a self-produced affair." The blog entry: http://stomp-off.blogspot.com/2009/

Didn't it win some sort of award for best packaging or some such thing? Best graphic design maybe?

I had that one up too but then I wondered about "hit", We never heard either of Dexy's UK hits. As I said, "one hit wonder" is very difficult to define. As I understand it, Dexy's is still a fairly big draw in the UK.

True "One Hit Wonders" are hard to find. I can't tell you how many times I thought a band only had one hit when I search and find some low charting minor hit listed. For instance, I consider this a "One Hit Wonder": But when I look them up, they had 2 hits in the UK and another very minor hit in the US ("The Celtic Soul Brothers"). Still a great tune to post anyway.